What is the strangest place your Troop has campout at.

[ValleyBoy]

About 10 years ago we planed a camping trip to campout and go day hike on the Pine Mountain Trail located inside FDR State Park which is about a 30 mile trip from troops home location.  All the primitive camping sites were book for that weekend at the state park.  We knew that the Troop in Pine Mountain owned about 40 acres over in that area that they used for camping so we contacted them and made plans to camp out there.  At that time we were a very young troop and our oldest scout was   12 years old. .We follow the directions we were given to the campsite since none of us has ever been to this campsite.  Some of the scouts from the other troop that were training for Philmont  and there Leaders were going to meet us at the campsite and camp and hike with us that weekend.  We turned off the main highway well after dark and following the directions we were given.  For the first little ways the road was a good paved road then it turned into a gravel road then a little bit father it turned into a dirt road  About a mile from the campsite the dirt road turned to the left and we had to go straight onto what I can only call a pig trail.  This campsite was really out in the backside of nowhere. We later learned that the Troop that owned the property had not campout there in about 5 to 6 years.

 

Kids had a great time on the camping trip and on the day hike.  Everyone of our boys were given a nickname by the boys from the other troop.  Late Saturday afternoon the former Scoutmaster of the Troop that owned the property can out from his home and visited with us,.  at that time he was in this 70's and was our Districts Advancement Chairman besides still serving on his Troops Board.  Very close to our campsite was an old well that had been roped off by the other Troop before we got to the campsite the night before.  While talking to the former Scoutmaster one of our leaders tells him some of our young scout had been talking about a body being thrown down inside that well.  All of our ears perked up when he told us that they were not far from the truth.  His next statement was "do you know about John Wallace".  One of our adults says "Yes",  His next statement was "the well the body was thrown down into is about 300 year over there" as he pointed off to the East.  "The creek where the body was burned at and the ashes thrown into is down at the bottom of the hill" as he pointed toward the South.  John Wallace had left the property to the Scout Troop just days before he was executed.  Our next statement to the old Scoutmaster was that ya'll could have told us this before we came out here.

 

We have not camp out there since.  I will not say that we will not go back there again.

 

The name that this murder is know as is Murder in Coweta County.

Edited October 31, 2017 by ValleyBoy

[Cambridgeskip]

I can imagine that place is properly spooky! Makes for a great story to tell the scouts.

 

The strangest place we've stayed at is called Lochearnhead Scout Station. It's a closed down railway station that was bought up by the scouts over here when the line it was on closed in the 1960s. It's now used as a centre for scout mountaineering courses. The railway theme has been maintained but the buildings turned into campsite facilities with log cabins built on the track bed. Good view of it in this photo of our contingent that went earlier this year here. You can see some of the old railway memorabilia on the wall in this photo of the dining room.

[Back Pack]

We camped at a haunted house. It was pretty fun and unsettling at the same time.

[bsaggcmom]

We have a cemetery in our district that has a Scout campground in it. The campground is in a section of the cemetery property that is close to a river with a water table that is too high for grave use.  The area frequently floods, but it has a beautiful pavilion with a dozen or so picnic tables in it and BBQ barrels mounted on the side. The pavilion also has a cement floor which is nice after wet weather.  A scout even created an orienteering course on the site for rank advancement. The only down side is there is no potable water and only 1 porta potty that isn't cleaned/emptied often.

 

The cemetery doesn't charge for the campground use only a refundable key deposit to the site's gate. It is down right creepy at night as you are locked into the cemetery at dark till dawn. We have used the site for adult trainings, day camp, and camporees. There's often a waitlist for a chance to use it. It's a little piece of wilderness 10 minutes from the suburbs of a big city.

[Troop185]

Since we are getting into Halloween Stories:  Years ago (1990?), I took a group of Webelos on a cabin outing at Bald Mts. State Park (in Michigan).  About two weeks after the cabin campout, Dr. Kevorkian (Dr. Death) help killed a lady in the same cabin.  As far as I know, the Pack and Troop has not been back to the cabin.

[desertrat77]

Alcatraz. 

 

We arrived first thing in the morning, a beautiful sunny San Francisco day.  The plan:  do some service projects, then spend the night in the penitentiary itself, then leave on the first boat out.

 

Brought along food and charcoal to cook our meals.  The scouts ran up and down the main cell block, selecting the cells (all single bunk) they'd spend the night in.

 

Fascinating place.  We did our service projects.  Tourists came and went.  After the last visitors left, the park service ranger who was escorting us showed us some parts of the prison that the public doesn't get to see.

 

The sun set.  The prison got dark.  No electricity.   The main cell block was as dark as a coal mine, and eerie.

 

Most of the scouts abandoned their plans to sleep inside.   Instead, they slept on a sloping patch of grass that oversees the bay and the night lights of SF. 

 

Me?  I was a brand new ASM and knew I couldn't live with myself if I chickened out.  So I took my flashlight and found cell B136 (if memory serves) and rolled out my sleeping bag.

 

Several of us stayed inside.  But it was a long, long, long night.  Nothing happened, though the park service ranger told some pretty convincing ghost stories.  You could hear a pin drop.  Someone several cells away could cough slightly and you could hear it clear as a bell.

 

I got very little sleep that night, and was quite glad to see the sun streaming through the skylights the next morning. 

[Torchwood]

We just had a District Camporee at the abandoned Medfield State Hospital in Medfield, MA. Parts of the grounds were used in the filming of Shutter Island, and the entire campus was the principal location for the upcoming New Mutants movie. Filming wrapped at the end of September, and we had 8 Troops there on Columbus Day weekend. The caretaker of the property took the whole crowd on a tour of the center of the campus one of the 2 nights we were there. The first trailer just came out, and it was cool to see the buildings, and how they added things, both real and with CGI technology.

[Scoutmaster Teddy]

We had a Camporee on the campus of a community college. Under the street lights no less. Even though we camped, I'm pretty sure the Camporee was a "get to know XXX Community College." In a way, a promo for that college.

 

Scoutmaster Teddy

[Tampa Turtle]

One of our 1st campouts was at a water management property--very isolated, very primitive. There had been a massive deer culling operation there a few years before so when you went down the trail you would come across massive piles of deer skeletons...one was taller than I and had to be more than 100+. Occasionally there would be an old leg with a bit of bits still on it. Felt like camping near an old concentration camp.  We did a night hike and those skulls gleamed from a distance away. 

[Hawkwin]

In an underground cave.

 

In a sub (Webelos den at the time).

[SSScout]

Yeah, Webelos....   

Uss Constellation , Baltimore Harbor.   The Scouts were mustered into Mr. Lincoln's Navy as "Powder Monkeys", the adults as "Landsmen". toured the ship, ran the guns,  slept in hammocks or on the deck.  Some of the Scouts were picky eaters (beef stew for dinner?  Apples, oatmeal for breakfast?) and pret' near starved to death, but I actually had two that stood the "night watch" on deck with me.

Very neat.

[numbersnerd]

District wanted to do a Cub Scout overnighter in the new jail facility once (BEFORE it was put into actual use!) Didn't think that promoting a night in jail was the best message to send.

[Saltface]

We had a Camporee on the campus of a community college. Under the street lights no less. Even though we camped, I'm pretty sure the Camporee was a "get to know XXX Community College." In a way, a promo for that college.

 

Scoutmaster Teddy

 

I was expecting more posts like this. I've camped at a city park next to a small municipal airport less than five miles from home. We made jokes about whether it required a tour plan.

It wasn't so much a camping trip as a really awesome overnight Aviation MB clinic. Unfortunately, we got to hear planes landing all night long.

[Stosh]

Uninhabited island in the Mississippi River.  Webelos campout, Boys learned how to make a latrine.  Major thunderstorm rolled in blew down the tents and drenched everything.  Boys learned how to make a fire with wet wood.